OECD Council Working Party on Shipbuilding (WP6) – Special Session on Market Distorting Factors, 21 June 2012

Since its creation in 1966, the OECD's Council Working Party on Shipbuilding (WP6) has had a mandate to address factors that distort normal competitive conditions in the shipbuilding industry.

The termination of the Shipbuilding Agreement negotiations at the end of 2010 ended an important phase in the WP6's consideration of market distortions in the shipbuilding industry.

Negotiations ceased because it was felt a deeper understanding was needed of factors that could cause distortions in the market, so that they could be more effectively identified.

In turn, such an enhanced understanding would also enable the Working Party to more effectively address the second part of its mandate, which is to progressively reduce the incidence of such factors.

This special session of the WP6 is intended to take a fresh look at market distorting factors, so that future efforts can be directed towards those that are the most important, and which would benefit most from further attention by the Working Party. The discussions at this special session will be taken into account during the review of the WP6 mandate before its expiration at the end of 2013, as well as the consideration of its future Programme of Work.

The Programme of the special session was as follows:

PART A. CURRENT STATUS OF THE SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY AND ITS SUSCEPTIBILITY TO DISTORTION